To Apocalypse Or Not To Apocalypse?
by Manchester
Summary: For the New Council, it's just another day at work, involving Dawn Summers, the Slayers, the Watchers, and the usual gang of demonic idiots.


Casually ducking under the thrown knife, Dawn continued reading the row of engraved stone slabs that had been laid out on top of the sacrificial altar deep inside the vast cavern under the Appalachians. From the other side of the altar, the high priest of the local demon cult hopped up and down in his fury, not wanting to go near the woman in her mid-twenties now that he'd missed with his only weapon. Instead, ignoring the growing portal in mid-air behind the altar, the ominous red glow covering the stone slabs, and the battle taking place on the cavern floor below the altar between his followers and the Slayers brought along by Dawn, the leader of the cult started yelling at the preoccupied woman.

"BLASPHEMER, YOU SHALL NOT DEFEAT US! WE KNOW THE TRUTH, THAT ALL WILL END ON THIS DATE, THE TENTH DAY OF THE TENTH MONTH OF THE TENTH YEAR, AS WAS WRITTEN DECADES AGO THROUGH THE DREAMS OF OUR FOUNDER! YEA, WE SHALL JOIN HIM IN GLORY, AS THIS WORLD DIES IN FIRE AND BLOOD-"

Sticking her pinky finger in the ear closest to the bellowing demon and then wiggling this digit, Dawn absently commented while still reading the prophecy, "Don't you guys ever have a volume control?"

"SACRILEGE! YOU WILL ENDURE THE TORTURES OF THE DAMNED FOR ALL ETERNITY!"

"That's a 'No,' then." Shaking her head, Dawn kept on sidling to the right while continuing to analyze what was written on the stone slabs. She started to develop a worried frown on her beautiful face, until she read the very last flat, broad piece of rock with a line of numbers carved into this, with Dawn's expression then promptly changing into absolute bogglement. In the next instant, the younger Summers sister bent down, to grab hold of the end stone slab, and with a truly exasperated grunt intermixed with the scraping sound created by her efforts, she now moved that rock into a new position in the line of the prophecy.

The cult leader stood there on the altar, absolutely frozen, with only his eyes bulging in sheer shock at the unbeliever daring to touch with her filthy hands the words of the First in the Eyes of the Demon Lord, when not even he, the son of the priest who'd laid out the stone slabs in their surely proper order after the death of their founder, would do such a thing. Feeling a holy madness overcome him, the current high priest would have charged at once to attack with only his bare hands the vile creature who'd acted so disrespectfully. Except for what happened next.

With the sound of the largest toilet ever created performing a thunderous flush, the portal leading to the depths of Hell vanished from existence, the blood-red glow covering the stone slabs also promptly extinguished, and this was accompanied by the grand finale consisting of the faint crunching noise of every one of these flat pieces of rock crumbling into dust, as the world was once more saved from extinction.

This had also succeeding in halting the combatants in the middle of their fights, as both demons and Slayers mixed together on the cavern floor now stared up in astonishment at the altar and its two occupants, with a smirking Dawn gazing at a demon cult leader swaying on his feet, while disbelievingly croaking out, "How…why…?"

It had been quiet enough in the cavern for everyone, much less the Slayers with their superhuman senses to hear that, which meant that everyone also heard Dawn's disgusted tone, "Oh, that's the usual thing that happens when you let at least a decade pass by a prophecy's must-use date, idiot!"

"What?" goggled the high priest at Dawn, who rolled her eyes in sheer exasperation, as the Key then snapped her fingers, which showed off a trick Willow had taught her, as a green stream of light burst from her hand, to write in letters of emerald fire in the air. With broad strokes, Dawn drew two pairs of dates that seized all eyes there:

10/10/10

01/01/01

Seeing the demon blankly regarding these sets of numbers with total incomprehension, Dawn Summers finally lost her temper, and she roared at the cult leader in a voice that sent echoes ringing throughout the entire cavern:

"_YOU DUMBASS, THE LAST ROCK WITH THE DATE OF THE PROPHECY WAS UPSIDE DOWN!"_


End file.
